You got a fiz-max-slant, fiz-max-horizontal, fiz-max-vertical. Then you got a max-eff-slant, max-eff-horizontal, max-eff-vertical, and max-eff-fire-control-altitude. And on top of all this, you have max-fuse-setting-time-out. So there’s 8 different choices for ceiling for a gun and boy-oh-boy do the fanboi sites milk this for all it’s worth.

Wikipoedia just publishes the data from the most popular websites, so it’s 100% wrong 92% of the time. The last 8% will become important as shown further on. But so many people just post up Wikipoedia crap as though it was something worth looking at. It isn't.

The “fiz” refers to fiziks (physics), the Isaac Newton stuff. The math is middle school level (maybe high school). What goes up, will come down. A mass (shell) M leaving the earth at velocity V and at angle A, against the force of gravity ‘g’, and against an air resistance ‘k’ (that decreases with altitude according to a known parameter), will describe a very well behaved curve. So it’s incredibly simple to make fiz-max curves for any gun, given shell weight and muzzle velocity. Woof !!!

But AA guns aren’t shot quite that way. They are most effective at their best ‘slant’ range, usually 70 to 75 degrees. Ok, so plug in 75 for angle A and get more curves. That’s fiz-max-slant. Now, one has to look at the ‘effective’ part of the thing.

Simple Newton is cool, but you also have atmospherics. Cross-wind shear buffeting, at multiple altitudes will affect a 12-14 lb shell way more than a 28 lb shell, according the a power law function applied to the wt/aeral cross section presentation. Because of this spread, accuracy needs to be adjusted on a shell wt basis. So a really shoot-hot, hi-velocity 75mm, might have exceptional technical characteristics, but fall short of a lower velocity, higher caliber, weapon when it gets down to “effectivity” cases.

And then there’s an effective fire control altitude, but that depends on national technical means, which are impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy for the various nations represented.

And then there’s a physical/time altitude defined by the shell fuse type/timing. Again, a national technical means thing, which is impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy for the various nations represented.

Best guess I can come up with is generate the fix-max-slant curves, and adapt them with the atmospheric parameter. Then get the best data I can for FC and Fuse timing, graph that and pull everything else onto that curve and get arbitrary for some specific weapons.

It really is a graphical solution, with Newtonian physics as a baseline, atmospheric effects as an adder, and a modulo plus/minus on the later war FC/Fuse data.

Danm ... Fiziks is fun Great thing about this techy nonsense is that it actually works for JFBs, because there's some righteous specs for certain guns that are not acommodated in game. But then, of course, there's that lack of fire-control and fusing.

God !!! If there was one thing I wish (well, one of maybe 4 or 5 things), it would be "screw the algorithm, let's get FC righteous". Sorrowfully, that will not happen, so best we can do is get as righteous as possible within the game parameters as they are presented.

Ok, so it ain't perfect, but it is self-consistent and reasonable. It sets up very nicely with Navweaps, or any other serious organizational source. A bit more informative than the typical Wikipoedia stuff.

Is is possible/feasible to represent FC upgrades by defining different "weapons" (maybe with changed accuracy) when the FC upgrades, and then requiring ships to upgrade to get the "new weapons" and benefit from the FC improvements?

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar Weapon/ship upgrades should be easy, you just might need to ask Symon what values to use. I cannot see any reason why it shouldn't be too difficult. (But I have been wrong before...)

No, you are quite right, Sardakuar. Very straight forward. Just a bit painstaking, but nothing too difficult.

Ok, got AA altitude results and they are shocking, when compared to the game values for ceiling. Some guns with ceilings of 40000+ got cut to 33/35000. Some went from 41000 to 41300. Many, many values are close to game values. That’s good. Many, many values are significantly different. That’s bad. I think that many ceiling values were harvested from the internet, without regard to thought. Some are at 85 degrees slant, some 75 slant, some are “effective”, some “max” (whatever that means). And some are just physically impossible.

You got a 4.5in/45 QF (MkIII) gun with a “reported” ceiling of 41000 (old game), 39000 (Babes), with an calc of 30300; and you get exactly the same gun system (MkIV), with a “reported” ceiling of 29900 (and a calc of 30300). I mean, what’s up with that?

So, run the math with a program having totally self-consistent values. Inputs are the shell radius, the shell mass, muzzle velocity, a uniform slant angle of 75 degrees, and uniform air density of 1.25 kg/m^3, and a drag coefficient. The drag coefficient is first order dependent on initial muzzle velocity; this is because of a power law decrease in density with altitude, but a power law increase of the drag front with initial velocity. Math folks will kick my butt over this, but as a first order approximation, I think it’s fair.

Just for grins and giggles, I ran my program, for the 5.25in/50 QF MkI, with the identical inputs for the AA case, but set the incident angle for max horizontal range (45 degrees). The results were 68,304 horizontal feet (22,768 yards). Nathan Oakun’s program gives about 24,000 yards as the max range for this weapon.

Verified the result by doing the same thing for the 4.5in/45, the 5in/38, the 12cm/45, and the 12.7cm/50. My model puts the max range of all of these within 12% of Nathan’s FaceHard program, so I’m feeling pretty darn good about the AA altitude results right about now.

I can post my spreadsheet if people want.

Now, it’s off to get the Acc values. That's what's gonna make the fanbois howl !!

ORIGINAL: MateDow Me want! I assume that you are still using the formula that was discussed a few weeks ago?

Yes. Mouth (fingers) got a little ahead of my brain. Suddenly remembered that AA Acc is a function that depends on the Nav Acc function. So MUST complete the Nav stuff. Then the AA stuff is plug-it-in-and-turn-the-crank. So, off my butt.

Butt (arr, arr, arr) here's a sneak preview of the Ceiling stuff. Finished Japan and getting done with US and UK. Last page is "Other", which is Russia, Netherlands and France. China and Philippines used US/Euro weapons, so they will backfill to US/UK/Whatever. No more "leftover" lo mein or manok.

As you can see, the program is behaving very nicely. The Game Ceilings are from Babes, where we did our best to use good and consistent data. Nice to see that many of the reported values come right close to calculated values. Ok, these were generated with specific, repeatable, and standardized inputs. The calculated cielings are uniformly at a slant angle of 75 degrees. Every calculation on every Allied gun, will be done in exactly the same way. So expect unpleasant surprises.

Ok, so here's some Allied numbers. Obviously, they don't fit. But they should. They do in many respects. But in a lot of ways, they are fanboi fever dreams, and not physically possible.

You got this wikipoedia nonsense that gives a 3.7" Mk VI AA Gun a ceiling of 50,000 feet, with Col Probert's magic barrel and shell design. Can you say male cow fewmets? Given the shell size, weight, and muzzle velocity, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to put a shell at 50,000 feet. So, that bad boy sits at 33k. And then there's the AFB crap that puts DP guns at 38/39000 feet, when they really got to 30/31000. Woof !!

Hey, great looking stuff. Very much approve of your approach to work everything out from the actual raw numbers. Can't comment in too much depth until I get back home on Saturday, but this caught my eye;

quote:

ORIGINAL: Symon You got a 4.5in/45 QF (MkIII) gun with a “reported” ceiling of 41000 (old game), 39000 (Babes), with an calc of 30300; and you get exactly the same gun system (MkIV), with a “reported” ceiling of 29900 (and a calc of 30300). I mean, what’s up with that?

The reason is probably that the majority of MkIV used the MkV single mounting, which was only capable of 55 degree elevation. Only the Battle class had the MkIV mount which was capable of 80 degrees.

Have not had a chance to check through that list of yours to see if this might be the case for any other weapons, but it might be an idea to list maximum elevation on that table just to account for these oddities.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Symon You got this wikipoedia nonsense that gives a 3.7" Mk VI AA Gun a ceiling of 50,000 feet, with Col Probert's magic barrel and shell design. Can you say male cow fewmets? Given the shell size, weight, and muzzle velocity, it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to put a shell at 50,000 feet. So, that bad boy sits at 33k. And then there's the AFB crap that puts DP guns at 38/39000 feet, when they really got to 30/31000. Woof !!

You have it in your table as 810m/s MV, which does make it impossible, but I've seen the MkVI listed as 1040m/s MV for a new gun. Might make the difference.

ORIGINAL: JuanG You have it in your table as 810m/s MV, which does make it impossible, but I've seen the MkVI listed as 1040m/s MV for a new gun. Might make the difference.

Too right !! I was pulling out my hair wondering what-in-the-world !!! There's a typo in the stuff I got from Larkhill. Reversed the I and V so data is titled Mk VI but is actually for the Mk IV. Same basic gun system as the Mk I-III. No wonder. If I just went a few pages further ...

Oh, well, totally different gun. Bigger charge, but about the same shell; different drive bands, slight change to ogival radius. Sorry about that.

BTW, thanks Juan. Always good to have more than one set of eyes on things.

ORIGINAL: JuanG The reason is probably that the majority of MkIV used the MkV single mounting, which was only capable of 55 degree elevation. Only the Battle class had the MkIV mount which was capable of 80 degrees.

Yes. I think the best solution is dink with type for the Mk III/IV (there's 3 entries for these) to make one of them a Nav gun. If you can't get above 55 degrees, you ain't AA. Good thinking.

You know, I should actually read the stuff I have instead of just looking at the data tables. Have an Ordnance Manual for 3” AA guns from 1928 and the text is pretty interesting. Section on the base 3”/40 M1918 is very informative, as is the section on the base 3”/55 M1917. Then there’s a section on the new gun (what would be the M3). That was an eye popper.

Designed to chamber M1917/18 rounds, but also a “new” round with a slightly different projectile (5.9kg as opposed to 6.82kg); same case dimensions, better propellant. Chamber and breech were designed for a working pressure of 2700 kg/cm^3 that would “allow” a muzzle velocity of 2800 fps (853 m/s), but barrel wear forced a reduction in working pressure resulting in a muzzle velocity of 2700 fps (823 m/s).

All the rounds were fungible. That’s why the Philippine reports are so interesting; they may have had M3 model ordnance, but they were using War-I vintage M1918 ammo.

Wherever I could, I used shell weight for dedicated AA rounds, so it may differ slightly from shell weight for AP, HE, etc.. Whever I could, I used muzzle velocity for the weapon firing dedicated AA rounds, so it may differ slightly from muzzle velocity for AP, HE, etc.. (@Kereguelen - for example, the Sov 7.62s are shooting the O-361K )

@Matedow - stuck your requests in at the bottom of the Allied sheet. Couldn't find any different ballistics data for the 3" Mk-22 (assume you are really talking about the 3"/50RF Mks 33/34). Same basic gun, same basic ballistics, just a nifty autoloader that puts out a poop-load of nastiness. So the gun is the gun. The 1946/1980 model will have to be accommodated by the accuracy part. Did the 6"/47 Mk-16. This is another one of those wtf-Batman things. Using Navweaps data the best I can see is 35/36000 feet. It would require a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s to get to the "reported" 78 degree ceiling of 48000. That's a loong, loong way from 812 m/s. I realize Navweaps does its best and its my go-to place, but JuanG taught me to always take a jaundiced second look. The Ord Manual from 1957 for 6"/47 gives the same 815 m/s specs and says 78/slant is 38000. Go figure.

ORIGINAL: oldman45 John, thanks so much for the work and the offer of the spread sheet. Shipboard AAA never felt right and I am looking forward to the "joy" of modding using your numbers.

Thanks!

You are welcome. But you probably won't get a lot more "joy" out of the new numbers. They are close enough to the old numbers to not make signifigant differences in outcomes. What I'm doing is lining up all the data so that it can be shifted up, down, left, or right, and retain its initial character and its "relative" value with respect to all the other weapons.

Perhaps your lack of "joy" is because game raid profiles are nothing like real raid profiles and therefore real gun profiles don't show real (historical) results. Just for example, the B-17s in game have Max_Alt between 35000 and 37500. We all know this is so. And every gamer ever born will note that most AA tops out at 32000 and will just fly above it. They can do that. It is acceptable within the game system.

Is it righteous? Hell no. The standard B-17 mission profile, over Germany, was at 15000, often with an IP to Release altitude of 10000. 1940 era thought put Coast Defense/Anti Ship bombers at 20000. Which was the profile run by the USAAC planes at Midway.

So what do we do? Limit the Max_Alt of airplanes because of the reality of their use? Can you imagine what would happen to a commercial wargame that restricted data to its actual nominal operational values? Dude ... !

Game has very wide "envelopes". Babes is developing "sweet spot" data. Play gamey, this won't help or hurt you much. Play righteous, you will be surprised.

The joy I was talking about was going line by line and editing. ;) You're right though, the altitudes I find the B-24's used in the pacific was 8 to 10k. Since I tend to fly mission packages that are around the number used in the pacific I get the results I expect.

Another thing that would drive a designer nuts is the feel. When I see the results of raids on my ships, I tend to get disappointed but the effects of my AAA and when my planes go after the IJN the results seem worse than what it "feels" like it should. Are the numbers correct? I don't know, all I can say is it doesn't feel right.

Once I started playing babes, I was hooked. "Feel right" or not, what you guys have done in the mod is magic and it continues to be played by me day after day. Thanks to you and all the rest.

Well, Hope springs eternal from every True heart. Maybe this will perk ya up some.

Next is Eff for AAA. This won’t be for AAAW (AutoWeaps), since the effect mechanism is different, just for good old AAA (Artillery). The mechanism is fragmentation, so the mechanism is a frag density within a volume. More powerful shells will have a larger volume. So put a 5” shell 10’ from the target and you will do a lot more damage than a 3” shell the same distance (radius) away. A 3” shell will have to get a skooosh closer, or get lucky.

I've never been pleased with the shell wt as a parameter. Simple, easy, quick-and-dirty, but (as you say) somehow unsatisfying.

So, that’s the model plan. Generate the pattern densities and then normalize the values into the range of numbers the program looks for. As always, the model will be based on data that can be found in any ordnance manual, or at places like Navweaps, Nigelef, or some of the nifty Russian sites.

Model is an abstraction (highly simplified) of fragmentation pattern density studies by US Army Armament Research and Development Command.

When you say (paraphrasing) 'for AAA but not AAAW (AutoWeaps)', I take it that shells like 40mm that were fragmentation (proximity fused) are included as AAA but 20mm, .50cal, etc. are what's classed as AAAW in this sense?

When you say (paraphrasing) 'for AAA but not AAAW (AutoWeaps)', I take it that shells like 40mm that were fragmentation (proximity fused) are included as AAA but 20mm, .50cal, etc. are what's classed as AAAW in this sense?

I don't think 40mm was proximity fuzed in WW II, AFAIK, small enough fuzes came only in 70s for 40 mm.

ORIGINAL: witpqs When you say (paraphrasing) 'for AAA but not AAAW (AutoWeaps)', I take it that shells like 40mm that were fragmentation (proximity fused) are included as AAA but 20mm, .50cal, etc. are what's classed as AAAW in this sense?

No, Sir. 40mm was explosive, but on a contact fuse. Fuses, in the day, were contact, or time (time subsumes the delay fuses). The first 'proximity' fuse was the VT (variable time). The smallest it could be squeezed down to was for a 3" shell.

The 40-mike didn't have it, so used the everyday flash contact fuse with a mechanical time delay that 'popped' the round after a timed number of seconds.

Everything was kinetic, but AAA was proximity kinetic, AAAW was direct kinetic, i.e., the round had to physically impact the target. A really interesting juxtaposition of Eff and Acc, wouldn't you say?

Some navies employed secondaries against anti torpedo and low level aircraft. Giving a very low ceiling for some current naval gun depending on game engine might be interesting, Yamato guns should be DP's ...

It is professionally done (I would expect nothing else), and absolutely beautiful - I will plug the numbers into my Babes scenario.

Five Gold Stars, Sir - you have met or exceeded all expectations.

5/54 Mark 42 Mod 9's forever...<grin>.

Edit - I had to change the Mod 10 (3/4 inch grade B armor for the gun house, DD's and above only) to Mod 9 (no armor, weather shield only - much lighter, for Knox Class Frigate, which is what I served on). I forgot, posted incorrectly, till a small voice talked to me at 0300 this morning...

Thank you all, very much. So off to AAA Eff, then. This one is turning out to be pretty easy (except for grinding through the math). There’s some good operational research studies on AAA effectiveness (US, UK, Russia, China, Canada) that are full of juicy math and data. There’s even some bottom line equations that can be rendered down into cube root dependencies of shell weight/area/power, etc.. They tend to consider AAA as one big “glop”, subsuming both effectiveness and accuracy. Maybe because by that time, everyone had decent fire control and VT, or an equivalent.

In the War-2 environment, and in the game system, it makes much sense to bifurcate the model into a strictly Effect portion and an Accuracy portion. The concept goes like this: You got some guns and some shells; If you were to pop a half dozen shells, from different national weapons, into a specific “standard” volume (all other things being equal), what would be an expectation value of damage to a plane within that specific “standard” volume. Obviously, six big shells will generate a higher “hurt” density than six smaller shells.

Now, the real bitch is getting those shells into the specific “standard” volume to engage the plane. That’s the Acc part of the algorithm. But once they get there, what damage will they do? That’s the Eff part of the algorithm.

I could wax enthusiastic about my attempts to look at shell surface area, and explosive charge per unit area, but found they all abstracted (one way or another) into cube root of shell wt. Then the explosive power of an individual shell (the fill wt %) got dialed in, also as a cube root. And so the math model proceeds. I think it looks good.